


Sunset Over Yesterday

by nahco3



Category: Football RPF
Genre: Community: cornerflag, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-30
Updated: 2011-08-30
Packaged: 2017-10-23 05:47:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/246895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nahco3/pseuds/nahco3
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes, lying next Fernando, the sensations of skin on skin scattering across his consciousness, he forgets what it is to be the best, forgets that he's out of title contention, forgets that he's out of the Champion's League.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sunset Over Yesterday

**Author's Note:**

> written for cornerflag in 2008.

Sometimes, lying next Fernando, the sensations of skin on skin scattering across his consciousness, he forgets what it is to be the best, forgets that he's out of title contention, forgets that he's out of the Champion's League (out of the fucking UEFA cup). All he knows is the golden light like the light of a late summer sunset over the ocean, the afterglow of glory. He basks in it, the quiet of a gentle kiss to the collar bone.

But when the alarm clock buzzes, harsh and electronic to the barely present dawn, David Villa remembers. The chill of the morning scatters his breath into puffs of white on his way to practice, and the cold brings realism.

I am leaving, he thinks, as soon as I can.

He repeats this like a mantra all through practice, as he runs, shoots and passes. When he skips around the field holding Vicente's hand, he silently tells the other man, next year, I will be winning the Champion's League. And you will still be running blithely off into oblivion.

He drives home to his wife, kisses her on the cheek and ruffles his daughter's hair.

"How do you feel about London?" he asks.

She regards him for a long while, her brown eyes cool and penetrating, then shrugs. "I don't know." She pauses. "Why don't you ask Fernando? Didn't he used to live in England?" If her eyes narrow, it's hardly perceptible.

David Villa nods and says something non-committal and that is that.

\---

"We're going to win it all this year," Fernando said to him one afternoon, as they lay in the grass watching the Flores torture the defense, letting the Mediterranean sun bake their bones.

"You think?" David replied, skepticism mixed with indifference.

Fernando turned to face him, their noses inches apart, and flashed him an irresistible grin. "I know."

David inhaled and smelled fresh cut grass, felt the itch of the blades on the back of his neck and smiled back. "Maybe we will. Maybe we will."

\---

David watches the first leg at Rosenborg from his couch and more than anything he wants to be there, feet on the ball, dancing at the touch line, pulling around the defense, an effortless tap, a goal. He watches, sees the disappointment on Fernando's face, on all their faces and thinks; if I had been there it would have been different. And the traitorous part of him murmurs I did not lose that game. No one can blame me. It's their fault.

But he's there for the second leg, there at home, his first game back. He wants to win so badly he knows that he can pull the victory out of the ground, mold it with his feet and, with perfect precision and seemingly effortless grace, deliver it shinning with silver to himself. The beginning of his rise not to greatness (which he has) but legend (which he craves).

Some losses he forget quickly, others linger on for a few weeks, stinging on his skin like residual drops of acid, carelessly spilled. This loss, 0-4 on aggregate, caws and wheels overhead like a flock of crows.

David can't explain it to himself, how the team failed so utterly. How he, the best striker in Spain, could not find the goal with a curving free kick or a devious back heel.

He and Fernando don't talk about it, pointedly, when David grabs Fernando two days later after practice. They don't talk all the way to the hotel room David's rented, with a view of the sea. Then David pulls Fernando to him (violently, callously, quickly) and after that there is no way to talk.

Fernando runs his hand down David's inner thigh, fingers lingering over his scar. David bites at Fernando's neck, runs knits his hands into Fernando's hair.

Fernando's face is oddly grim, and when David pulls their mouths apart, his eyes look tired, old. Still angry from the loss, David nearly slaps him (how dare you get old, how dare your knees ache. I demand immortality) but then it's all gone and he feels empty. Empty enough to let Fernando push him onto the bed and fuck him.

Afterward, Fernando showers and David lies tangled in the dirty sheets, looking out the window at the grey sky, the grey sea and the seagulls, crying like greedy ghosts. The touch of salt in the air clings to his sweaty skin and sticky legs. He wonders how he and Fernando can be fucking and still unable to connect on the pitch. Then Fernando comes back in, drying his hair, with his old glint back in his eyes, and David forgets again, for a little bit.

\---

He's sitting on the back of the bus, leaning his head against the window, feeling the cold of the coming winter through the glass. His feet are up on the seat next to him, an ace bandage and ice wrapped around his ankle. His ankle throbs dully.

Fernando works his way down the aisle, smiling at everyone that will meet his eyes. He stops when he reaches David, and David looks up at him with dark angry eyes, like a trapped animal. Fernando sighs, reaches down, gently lifts David's feet and sits next to him. David stretches his legs out over Fernando's lap and turns towards the window.

"It could be worse, you know," Fernando says quietly, and lays his hand across David's knee.

David snorts and doesn't turn away from the cold parking lot outside the window. Winter sets in early in England.

"At least when you come back they'll still want you to play," Fernando continues, and his eyes are old again, looking either back or forward, David can't tell and doesn't care.

"Who says I'll want them when I come back," David says, carelessly.

Fernando frowns, but doesn’t remove his hand from David's knee. "You'd leave?"

David tries to smile carelessly, but the pain in his ankle forces it to a grimace. "I want to win."

Fernando looks like he's about to say something, but stops and looks at David. He sighs again, the hand on David's knee strokes in slow circles, and Fernando's other hand reaches tenderly down to David's injured ankle.

"You'll never be able to come back, you know." Fernando says, his fingers feathering over David's throbbing ankle, the pads of his fingers catching on the rough edge between bandage and ice cold skin.

Maybe Fernando's hands aggravate the pain, maybe it's too many scoreless losses, maybe it's something else, but David drops his head back against the glass and furiously swipes at his eyes. "I know," he says fiercely, in a tone that brooks no argument. "I know."


End file.
